Apple and Google, along with two other major tech firms, had agreed to settle a lawsuit filed against them. The settlement was valued at $324 million after the four tech giants had been accused with conspiracy to withhold salaries in Silicon Valley. This was according to sources familiar with the matter, reported Reuters. The information was disclosed by the sources weeks prior to when the high profile suit would start.

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The compensation agreed upon by the four companies was revealed through a filing on Thursday. However, the terms on the payment were not disclosed in the court filing.

Apple Inc., Google, Intel and Adobe Systems Inc. were sued by tech workers in 2011. The employees said that the four firms had conspired together to not hire one another's workers to be able to avoid salary wars.

The suit filed on behalf of around 64,000 employees was scheduled to start by the end of May, according to a Reuters report. The court filings showed that workers were seeking a hefty $3 billion in awards for damages. The petitioned amount for the damages could even go as much as $9 billion according to the antitrust law.

The lawsuit filed against Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe has been closely watched due to the hefty price tag for employees. Emails sent by Eric Schmidt, former Google chief executive, the late Steve Jobs from Apple, and their other rivals were disclosed showing intentions of avoiding to tap top engineers from their firms.

The exchange of emails shown through court reports said that a Google recruiter proposed a job offering to an Apple employee. However, Schimdt relayed to Jobs that the recruiter would lose his job. The note sent by Schimdt was later given to an Apple executive from the human resources division with a smiley face icon.

Meanwhile, another exchange revealed a human resources director who was working at Google to send an inquiry to Schmidt regarding no-cold call agreements with rivals. However, Schmidt said that it was his discretion to share it verbally rather than writing it on paper, to avoid getting sued.

TagsAdobe Systems, Intel, Reuters